


Palest Imitation

by exAm



Category: Death Note & Related Fandoms, Death Note (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Blackmail, Coercion, Dominant Light, M/M, Unsafe Sex, tsundere bottom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-11
Updated: 2017-10-18
Packaged: 2019-01-16 00:30:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12331905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/exAm/pseuds/exAm
Summary: When Nate River blackmails Light Yagami to prove to himself he is better (read: less prone to emotional error) than the original 'L' - He hadn't  anticipated what all he might be getting himself into.





	1. And The Lion

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Xoira](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xoira/gifts).



> Hope you like your gift. Somehow the prompt totally ate my mind for the weekend so this still a decent amount of words without the quotes and commentary. 
> 
> It was a wonderful time trying to figure the Kira/Near dynamic. 
> 
> I'll make an additional note here when I've finished editing it. 
> 
> “You seem to be under the impression that there is a special breed of bad humans. There is no such thing as a stereotype bad man in this world. Under normal conditions, everybody is more or less good, or, at least, ordinary. But tempt them, and they may suddenly change. That is what is so frightening about men. "//Sōseki Natsume//Kokoro

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The truth is  
> We were much too young  
> Now I'm looking for you  
> Or anyone like you // Koop Island Blues

As Kira is ‘L’ and playing duel roles, Light Yagami has unusual considerations to make.  
  
He worked a position he’d created to resolve a worldwide problem ( _movement_ ) he had made. This committed him to a strange back and forth between two supposedly equally powerful forces.  
  
Save for his own father, his administrative team, all the detectives and investigators he'd been paired with through the NPA were easily lead astray. And luckily his father who was the glue that held their team together seemingly could never process his flesh and blood might be the 'bad guy' they were after. Even though 'L' had told him that many times before he died.   
  
Still the lot of them would suspect something was wrong if he stopped doing detective work whenever it didn’t serve Kira’s ends.  
  
He’d created a bit of a side project to play both sides to his best benefit.

He had known violent criminals take on the cause of Kira across the globe. Then he directed the Kira Task Force to finding those Kira-like criminals. He pulled his inspiration from cheesy detective novels where the motive was always the same, yet somehow typical readers never tired of buying into them.

The mind control aspect of the death note had proved enormously useful - 5 sentences of work in and he’d created a five month misleading Kira-imitation serial killer case for them ( _himself_ ) to resolve. Every time they celebrated.

Every time, days later, the killings ( _cleansing_ ) resumed.

Mostly the farce bored him but it was important that, until the world had become more pure and his followers were large enough in number and ready for him to rule it; he could play the part of his own worst enemy. 

'L' - the fangless attack dog of a fearful dying world order. The man was probably spinning in his grave.

* * *

  
Light was incandescent with rage when he found out about the SPK. His cool-headed mannerisms to mask this made him seem to others’ merely approbate of a team doubting ‘L’s right and his motives in the search for Kira. Internally, he’d berated himself after the first interaction with their team.

It had been unreasonable to believe that fooling his Japanese Task Force with neat investigations would stave off reinvestigation into himself from abroad. 

His team had been the last in contact with the real ‘L’ and though Light had been able to repurpose many of the man’s professional contacts for his own uses - he had never tried to make ‘L’ what it was before - his energy had been too tied up in being Kira and making his utopia a reality.

Back 8 years ago when the entity of ‘L’ had a bite far more dangerous than his bark, it had required the death of an actual divinity to take the man out. Light sometimes wondered how people could be dumb enough not to wonder why 'L' had stopped being a name synonymous with criminals being apprehended but oversights that served his purposes were to be respected.

When Light thoughtlessly gave the new opposition more justified suspicion by slipping up to admitting he had known the real ‘L’ was long dead; he’d been aghast with his uncharacteristic idiocy. He’d become used to easy misdirects for halfwits. He’d grown unprepared to reengage in mental battle with a worthy opponent.   
  
’N’ introduced himself as ‘Near’ and had spoken with no inflection over the phone-line and Light’s body jolted with recognition. 

This behavior should be a travesty when coming from other high-IQ individuals like himself. Surely they too could make the affectations of being normal. Whenever they chose instead to single themselves out; to make others uncomfortable with their jagged differences he felt a deep disdain for them.  But it was so much like 'L'... it felt like the ghost of him breathing down his neck.  
  
His first impression of Near was that he was good at his job but not half so good as ‘L’ had been. There were identifiable flaws in his reasoning where there had never been any in Ryuzaki's. He alsogarnered that the death of Ryuzaki had a personal meaning to Near. This meant he was dealing with either a former lover, a family member or something close to that.  
  
Light had never asked ‘L’ about other men he may have been with. It would have been too personal. Ryuzaki never did overly personal - not with him - they should have never been together. He had regularly chanted ‘Kira’ like a congratulations while clashing his mouth against Light’s more pliant one. Light had been much younger then. He had received those kisses hoping they might absolve him; then later after his memories flooded him vaguely hoping they might absolve ‘L’. As if 'L' would have  ever taken leave of his senses and pride enough to concede defeat and fall at Kira's feet.  
  
He’d let his only equal’s passionate conflicted attentions wash over him then. The full intensity of his accuser helplessly becoming his lover had not made a full gut-punch until after the man was gone. It had not seemed that out of the ordinary to his younger self. Light had always made people melt like that.

He hadn’t known to savor those moments with L like the last drops of water before the desert.   
  
Though he was merely 23 years old his youth felt distant these days.   
  
And now here was someone all this time later who was coming for him, for his kingdom, with… with a tie to that past sounding much like L had once sounded. He felt a call to action like he hadn't in a long time.   
  
Later, Light swirled sherry in a glass and took small sips with Misa’s head laid in his lap while he watched the news which had been piped in through a VPN secured network from America. He mindlessly stroked his long-term girlfriend's silken yellow hair. Occasionally he pressed the screenshot button knowing she’d tend to the list using her eyes in the morning.  
  
“Darling,” She had said, even he tried to empty his loud mind, “Something is wrong. I can tell.”  
  
“Not now, Misa.” He warned.  
  
She sat up into his lap and hugged him tightly, burying her face in his chest. He let her. As he almost always let her. He felt no great warmth towards her but found sometimes he craved her contact.

She provided him something pleasantly physical enough to distract him from the complex new worlds his mind created for him, all temptingpalaces of logic and ethical fortitude he might climb up into and never leave. Certainly many others could give him the same outlet - but she had the shinigami eyes.  
  
“You’ll tell me later then.” She'd insisted.  
  
His phone buzzed in his pants pocket.  
  
“Sure.” He said half-serious while getting up and she, anticipating this, moved off him.  
  
His phone buzzed two more times in succession as he moved away from her view. She'd know a long time it drove him up a wall for her to read over his shoulder so she looked away from his screen.  
  
[RESTRICTED NUMBER]: Hello, Light Yagami.  
  
[RESTRICTED NUMBER]: You are being blackmailed.  
  
[RESTRICTED NUMBER]: See, I possess a set of comprising videos of yourself involving handcuffs with an older foreigner.  
  
Light almost dropped the phone looking at the message. Handcuffs… _no_.  
  
[LIGHT YAGAMI]: You have the wrong number.  
  
[RESTRICTED NUMBER]: You should meet in the Intercontinental Tokyo in one hour by yourself. I will know if you are alone.  
  
[LIGHT YAGAMI]: Again, you have the wrong number.  
  
[RESTRICTED NUMBER]: (A photo uploads of Light at 18 years old in a large open plan shower on top of an obscured body, from the back one can see enough to know it is two men engaged in sex though only part of Light’s face can be seen, his mouth is half open in pleasure, his amber hair is dripping water down onto the obscured man’s body, a chain is pooled on the ground beside them.)  
  
[RESTRICTED NUMBER]: You have one hour, Yagami-san. Remember you must come alone.

[LIGHT YAGAMI]: This is harassment. It's illegal.  
  
[RESTRICTED NUMBER]: If you do not arrive on time NPA and other organizations will receive this file with identifying information about the participants in the video.  
  
[RESTRICTED NUMBER]: Kira’s Kingdom too would be interested to know the face of the famous 'L'’s partner. Don't you think?  
  
Who suspected he was playing at being L? Who thought he was probably involved with Kira? This was Near from just earlier in the week. But why the explicit blackmail? What was he looking for in exchange?

He had only just begun to formulate plans concerning the SPK. He had never expected to deal with another huge problem from their side at the same time.Light punched the nearest wall bruising his knuckles and groaned in incoherent rage.   
  
Misa ran to him, “Light. Please.” She lightly brushed his arm in a meek effort to involve herself.  
  
“Go away.” He barked, pushing her aside with mild force. He couldn’t use Misa to help him with this; he needed her assistance and her eyes in the future. He also needed her to distract Ryuk who would otherwise chatter at him all day long.

His mind raced. How had the videos ever surfaced? He and L unspokenly had worked together on deleting records of their occasional trysts. They had done it together so it had been flawlessly imperforate.  
  
L was not the kind of man who would have wanted a video of himself like that in existence. They had been wild together. Light had not known how to stop himself and neither, in spite of age, had L. Even for the sake of his case. Light was struck by the morbid thought he should have set the hard drives on fire by throwing them in the incinerator with L’s body and the man could have burned up with his own sins.  
  
No one had ever come to exhume L’s body from the headquarters. No one had come to pay their respects. Since Watari was dead too and as far as any of them were aware that had been his closest contact. The Kira Task Force team had been the one to give L and his attendant a funeral. The only ones to stand at their gravesites he knew of.

Light had ultimated decided Ryuzaki had been an orphaned genius with no real friends. Only a network of hired help who viewed him as off-putting. It hadmade Light feel relieved and, since he suspected been the only person the man had let himself be somewhat close to, Light regularly laid dozens of white roses on his gravesite. He didn't find his actions that ironic. Ryuzaki's had been a suicide by sheer stubbornness.  
  
L had done it to himself, forced Light’s hand because he wouldn’t back down. Light had been given no choice.

Still. It was worth remembrance.  
  
To find out L had others still living who cared about him; it meant something of a paradigm shift for Light.   
  
Misa was tearing up now, sniffling from his harsh treatment of her. He ignored that and pulled up his mental map of his city in his head. ‘An hour, an hour, and the train took 45 from here to that neighborhood.’ His photographic memory provided the train time-tables.  
  
As she grew more upset with him it made her difficult to deal with, all high-pitched, whiny and desperate for verbal confirmation that he still adored her but he had no time now. ‘Then a 5 minutes walk from the stop from there.’ 

He threw on his large blue wool silk-lined coat. He sprinted out into the driving chill wind of another Tokyo winter leaving Misa mouthing wordlessly shocked at the unclosed door left ajar behind him.  
  
————————-  
  
When he arrived at the intercontinental a tall heavy-set blonde man stood under its toweringly high ceilings with a sign that read Light’s last name in roman lettering; looking simultaneously officious and strangely out of place in a lobby full of international guests. Light nodded to him and saw he’d been recognized. As they walked at a clip in silence to the elevators Light took what he could from the man’s look: American, mixed European descent. Was ’N’ an American man as well? They arrive at the penthouse level and his giant of an escort turns to leave.  
  
He walked into the penthouse and a 42" TV glared to on in the den illuminating a house of tarot cards surrounding it like an ephemeral fortress. Scattered across every surface in the room are a variety of small plastic toys including robots and lego dolls in careful arrangements by like color. They appear to be hand-painted.  
  
“Welcome Kira.” The screen reads between the playing cards in blinking neon Japanese in a font typically reserved for wedding invitations. It makes an unpleasant static noise. A voice comes on the over the deep bass speaker system built into the walls of the room about 10 decibels above a comfortable hearing level and drowns out the static noise.  
  
“You’re punctual on top of everything else. Tell me did you do this because it was that difficult to be simply perfect?”  
  
“Do what?” Light said faking wide, confused eyes while looking around for a camera he can look into while speaking. None are around that are readily observable.  
  
“Everything you’ve done. Murder thousands of people. Kill the real 'L'.” Near sounded hateful.  
  
“I’m only here because you’ve threatened to expose my sexual history with another man. As an aspiring head of the NPA this threat is quite effective. It's immoral of you. But here I am. What have you brought me here for?” Light replied evenly.  
  
“It’s fascinated me that I can’t detect anything about your true identity in the way you present yourself in public even when I have overwhelming evidence of your guilt. You aren’t a typical sociopath. Your charm has a sincerity and depth to it, you make some on my own team feel as if I’m still mistaken and you are in fact the most pristine man in Japan. It's truly a rare gift. I’d love to study you. How it is that someone like you became Kira.” He was gleeful. It was more like the man was talking about a new toy than he was speaking about another human being.  
  
This guy was creeping him out even now. Light’s right hand went to his omega speedmaster watch instinctively. Inside it he’d housed a weaponized version of the death note, with an inbuilt pen and a few shreds of paper enough to deliver heart attacks. It was pointless though. Without shinigami eyes to read names with all he could count on was that he had kept physically fit since college and that he had learned to fight in hand to hand combat as part of his police training.Against someone like the giant in the hallway, he might be able to use his own size against him. Honestly, he hadn’t completed enough fieldwork to know how he’d fair in combat that wasn’t staged.

 

“If you are going to make wild accusations I would like to see your face.” Honestly he doesn’t care to see the man’s face. His Japanese sounds foreign now having listened to it more. His is probably some horrid white person's face with a giant nose and deep set eyes. Rather he wanted to know if he can take him down after hearing such creepy things from him.  
  
“I suppose I can say I’ve been here the entire time. This disappoints me though. I thought you’d be more sharp and see me first.”  
  
Light scanned the room in the dim candlelit atmosphere again. Where the fortress of tarot cards extended into the kitchenette area he spotted what looked like an unmoving small pile of white sheets. He let his eyes adjust and walked closer to the anomaly amongst the carefully construed mess.

  
Any of the fear Light had dissipated from him instantly after peering at his would-be tormentor for the first time. He was looking at a vulnerable petite wisp of a boy in clean and freshly pressed linen white pajamas with a shock of wavy stark white hair on his head and wild white eyebrows laying motionlessly still on the heated wooden floor. He has a headset on that musses his thick hair apart in places. His skin is parchment white to the point it is nearly translucent but he has nice features. His eyes are a deep black as well which doesn’t fit. Albinos couldn't have black eyes. Light smiled to himself, this was a vanity then - colored contacts likely to hide something the boy doesn’t like something about himself. The dark circles also appeared to be eyeliner in an imitation of L’s naturally indelible ones.

  
“You are ’N’?” Light asked to verify.

“Yes. Your deductive powers are really on fire tonight, 'L'.” The Caucasian replied snidely. 

  
“I hope to end this unpleasantness with you swiftly. I apologize that my involvement with him has upset you. If you like him that much you should know it would also be disrespectful to him if you do not delete those private files. Please tell me the nature of your demands and I will see to them if they are reasonable. I will not do so with any good will but I will do them.” He said to the boy’s still unmoving body.

“L never involved himself with anyone. As his chosen successor, myself and others who were trained to follow in his footsteps knew him only through yearly computer screen modulated greetings. Somehow _you_ made him slip up, you exposed a serious weakness in him. I wouldn't have suspected sexual drive was something he suffered from were it not for these video logs I received after inheriting his cause. The question is - why? What made you special? There's everything about you I can observe. There must be some additional quality about you that I'm missing to lure someone of his caliber." 

Near's tone implied whatever this quality may have been it was woefully unapparent to himself.

Light openly sneered at the boy for being such a snide shit-talker. As if it would ever be any great mystery why anyone would want to lay down with himself. The boy had just said something important though - that there were more uncomfortable little clones like himself so Light filed that away to obsess about later. He'd need to destroy every extension of Ryuzaki if he were to truly annihilate 'L'. Only then could he could rest again.

“Is your demand to know more about us then? What we got up to was for convenience’ sake and despite what you might believe, considering you idolize the man; I was probably one in a long line of people he fucked. He had zero professional distance between himself and those around him. Do you understand that your mentor or idol or whatever he was to you - that he was a shady person with almost no regards to human rights?”  
  
“No. What I understand is that’s what he wanted you to believe.” Near replied condescendingly and he finally slid out from a break in the card palace he'd created to stand up in front of him. Light had nearly a foot on him. He immediately imagined snapping the childish young man's elegant white neck.  
  
He continued by rolling his eyes. Unmoved by this argument, Light continued on, "Can you tell me why it is that I am here?"  
  
"I want to know how _it_ felt. I have the missing puzzle piece to the completed puzzle of how he lost - to you of all people." Near breathed. "Occam's razor dictated that would be the one."  
  
God what a shitty little... It? Oh _that._ And Light, he barely caught himself from laughing in joyous relief that 'N' was a uncommon pervert instead of a murderer. 


	2. And The Lamb

Nate River twirled his hair habitually as he waited for the reaction to the power play he was making.  
  
Would the haughty well-dressed man hit him? Would he laugh at him and act disgusted? His gamble could go wrong so many ways from here.  
  
Weirdly, Light Yagami radiated charisma and a sense of humor towards him in response, “You could have asked for a private meeting without these threats. You could have have told me you had access to old videos and if you had told me you wanted the same treatment; I'd probably have said yes. Sex is not a big deal to me.”  
  
“Are you refusing, then?” Nate said.  
  
“The opposite; but I am not about to be as kind about it as I would have been with a normal lead-up. Are there cameras on us now?”  
  
“Of course. Why are you saying yes?”  
  
“Do you not trust that your evil plan worked?” Light joked with a wry smile. He threw up his hands in mock defeat.  
  
Something in the way Light did not follow up about the cameras immediately again made Nate aware the way he had said ‘of course’ had been too firm.  
  
A studied actor could spot a badly acted line.

Now, Light also must know there are no cameras on them here, but there is a voice recorder going, hidden in the couch on the off chance Light made a huge error and told Near something more meaningful than the insincere but flattering lies he crafted.

Nate wasn’t able to chance a video record of this meeting tonight. He could easily destroy an old school tape recording should nothing more come of tonight than the chance to sleep with a man who half the world thought was a God. Digital videos were more dangerously permanent and he could not been seen by his team as compromised for the sake of the investigation.  
  
Only Rester knows he’s here tonight instead of back at their headquarters where they’ve set up a dummy in his place. The man hadn't even asked him why. The military man had proven commendable at keeping predictibly quiet; even about plans he viewed as immoral as long as they were coming from the people who employed him. Right now that was only Near.  
  
Halle couldn't know. He was actually most worried about her. She would either mother him sternly or shoot him in the head had she known he was fraternizing with the SPK’s current primary suspect. Probably one and then the other.  
  
“Too easy. I had many more of those pictures ready to convince you.”

“No. No more of that. ‘L’ is dead and it is callous. You saw the videos. Even if I was a fling for him; he meant something important to me.”  
  
And had Light just ever been the detective’s ex-lover that would have been a meaningful and sincere complaint.  
  
This was someone who could be deceitful and duplicitous on a level Nate had never encountered prior to watching the videos of him. Nate's heart rate spiked just thinking about what a cunning actor Light Yagami was, but his face remained passive.  
  
He continued, “If I do this for you I'll need it in writing you’ll erase the tapes and any pictures. I want several ways to verify they are gone. I’d have opted for more stringent negotiation if you weren’t such a surprise. I was expecting another American brute based on your guard.”  
  
"If you can even do what I want. A surprise how exactly?” Nate continued to express primarily distrust towards Light.  
  
“You are strangely pretty, almost fae. Are you like Ryuzaki was, sequestered away inside your own reality? If you were old enough to go to a bar you’d quickly realize there was no need for you to blackmail other men for sex.”  
  
“… This isn't just sex. I'm testing something.” Nate, who often felt nothing, or close to it, most of the time - felt his whole body warm at the compliment despite its caveats. “I’m only 18, too young for a bar, and besides I have no interest in being social.”  
  
“Here I was afraid to know because of how young you look" Near knew how he appeared to be a child playing at adult matters. He could have been lying but the older man seemed to have no inclination to find out. "Are we in agreement on how to proceed?” Light asked.  
  
“I need to know how you made L fail so that I won’t fall prey to it.” Nate said and he meant it. He wanted to know he was better than 'L' had been - at everything. That he could face the same challenge that had destroyed him but win where he had lost.  
  
He was pleased with the way this was going even if Light Yagami obviously felt like the tables were turned. He'd also not been keen to defile L’s post-humous reputation by releasing the tapes. If he needed to he still would do it. Because, though it would be the kind of thing that would piss off his fair minded colleagues, when Light Yagami did not die it would have proved he was Kira to everybody else who mattered within a couple of weeks. 

There would have been no way with Kira’s historical elimination of all those who had openly faced him down - that killing L and everyone he knew of that who’d been intimately connected to him… that the chain of events wouldn’t have happened as soon as he had seen record of their faces.  
  
It would be petty and unproductive otherwise though. Nate didn’t need the extra confirmation for a foregone conclusion. Even if others were somehow too dense to see it. L had thought the man was Kira, which meant that he had been, and then the man, for murky reasons, had taken ‘L’s detective handle after his death and mined the available parts of his wealth. He was Kira. It could be no other man. He looks to him then, a honey-eyed and silver-tongued angel of death.  
  
“I certainly can make you feel like I made him feel. My memory is a steel trap. I remember all the things we did.” Light said. And he began to take off his long wool coat. "Careful. You'll get hooked on it."  
  
If Nate were the sort to blush he would have because Light promised that in such a way that it made the hairs on the back of his neck prick up. They haven’t even touched yet and Nate felt an intimacy he’d never felt prior to this encounter.  
  
Nate was the first to admit to himself he wasn’t the best at understanding interpersonal relationships, it being that he’d had zero ones of great import. Even his few friendships had been strained. His romantic rivalry charged spats with Matt for Mello’s attentions didn’t count because they’d never amounted to anything. Still from an outsider’s perspective it appeared to Near that Light’s “type” was whomever he could use to gain more power.

  
Light began to take his shirt off and Near was suddenly unable to think straight anymore. Not only was the fit man more muscular than he had been at 18. Now he has a smattering of golden hair he didn’t have before. A trail of it down to the dip where his white pants seem held up by the jutting triangle of his hip-bones.  
  
“I can not make you into him by fucking you though.” Light said matter-of-factly while he leaned down to take off his oxfords and socks then begins to unbutton the white pants. “You seem to want to be him.”  
  
“In that regard, I no more idolize ‘L’ than I do ‘Kira - both of you are complete failures.’” Near says, snapping back to it at the insinuation he’d ever be anyone other than himself.

“Ground rules. Stop calling me a murderer. I’ve truly had enough of the false accusations for one lifetime. I see through you, though.” Light said. And now clad in only black boxers and he approached Nate slowly. “I can tell because of the eyeliner and the contacts.”  
  
Nate does blush then. He hadn’t thought _those_ were observable - he’d a long time to work on the look. The contacts were custom-made and different on each side just as real black eyes would have been. The black rings were a liquid cosmetic that looked  natural. And originally he _had_ been emulating his childhood hero with this look. He’d so admired and idolized the young wildly wealthy prodigy who’d funded the school that had saved him from an impoverished and likely doomed life as a neurologically atypical orphan. 

He’d only heard stories of how the man looked back then. And he’d been called a demon so many times by the other children at his school that the black irises within sleepless eyes look provided a normalizing change from his natural ghost with reddish hued eyes look.  
  
That was back when he viewed ‘L’ as infallible. Before he’d known he was only a man, smarter than most men but still merely a human being. Still by now the black eyed look had become part of the way he saw himself.  
  
“I slept with the real ‘L’. I’d like to sleep with the real ’N’.” And then, for the first time, Light Yagami, the most prolific mass murderer in recorded history, the man who killed his father figure and the ‘God of the New World’, places his hands on his shoulders and runs them down his chest to his bellybutton and starts to undo his pajama shirt kneeling to kiss at the skin as he reveals it. Nate stays stock still but he takes it all in. His body feels on fire with the conflict between feeling trapped by this power and feeling for the first time in his young life, freed to show his need.


	3. Laid Down Together

The boy sighed heavily like was floating from the wave of kisses bestowed across his chest and stomach. Good. Light hadn’t really had a plan other than ‘dismantle ’N’ and destroy him at all costs’ until he’d seen him for the first time. Now having learned the simple desire the 18 year old had supposedly developed for him, he’d gladly do this in exchange for the videos, even with the off-chance it was a misleading lie... having observed him in person now Light didn’t think Near understood his own desires enough to make that kind of falsehood work. Leaving ’N' spell-bound would only work in Light’s favor.  


Near while having proven to be colder and snider than L had ever been in his speech and ever stranger still in his mannerisms was warmer than the man had ever been when he was touched. There was a youthfully unguarded physical responsiveness, a submissiveness too. L had shown neither.   
  
This was indicative of 'N's inexperience too. While Light had not ever been anyone’s first time before; he was certain, though he would not be asking, that this would be this young man’s first time.  
  
He began a role-play by setting up the scenario, “You’re smart, aren’t you? Imagine that you and I have been bound together by some stroke of fate - literally. Did you have the handcuffs?”  
  
Near shook his head to say, no, and that made Light pause. That was strange and it changed things. Why had he asked him to come show him how _being together with L_ had felt if he didn’t want a faithful reenactment? No matter. He'd still show him. He threw the boy's shirt on the leather couch and tugged at the corner of his pajama pants with a hungry look. He didn't really care if his newest audience understood the complexities of how well he could perform. 

He took in the way the boy had subconsciously splayed his legs while biting his pink lips when Light continued to move the pristinely clean white fabric off his body to expose almost equally white skin. Probable that Near had never much thought this through beyond wanting the pleasure like that he’d seen in the video logs from the old task force HQ. But how had he even gotten the damn videos? At what point would the albino grow mindless enough to answer that?  
  
Near moaned as Light roamed his hands across his newly bared form. Purposefully leaving his modest member which was straining against his tinsel-like pubic hair, completely slick with his pre-come untouched. Near either doesn’t realize he’s a far more receptive, less-guarded partner than L had been or perhaps he really isn’t trying to emulate Ryuzaki at all.  
  
Perhaps he was only vying, very successfully, to get ‘Kira’ to fuck his brains out. Light was all for that - but he also wanted to punish him for calling him here in a crass and objectifying way. He understood then younger man believed it was the only way he'd ever feel these hands on him. Light grabbed his small, tight backside and he let himself feel lust. He'd never been with such a small man before. Near was a rare find who hadn't gained the real world experience to know he was desirable yet. Light could almost forgive him. Especially with the inviting way he was acting right now. His tiny body on display for Light's perusal, keening needily into his touch

Near's apparent submissiveness made his wheels turn. He imagined the least possible, but most pleasant outcome, from their hook-up for a brief moment - He imagined Near falling madly in love with him so that he was willing to take the shinigami eyes, to make the deal. He imagined showing appreciation to the small boy who he would help find some normal day-wear. Whom he would instill more confidence in. Perhaps someday he’d be kissing him in front of his immediate family who would wearily congratulate them because Japan was changing and it was okay to be with another man. Even a foreign one. Especially after losing his long time girlfriend _so tragically._ Some way that left her beautiful corpse in tact so he could kiss her cold cheek and cry about nothing for the show of it. Most importantly he imagines this lust-struck strange young thing would be intellectually fortifying his every next move as ‘Kira’ before sucking him off every night. And that vision for the future is enough to put him right to work on making the impossible real. Light’s imagination had created stranger realities and seen them through to their birthing before.

Light didn’t like to imagine anymore; that had been his life before a death god blessed him. Now he acted where before he would have only schemed. He was an idealist who'd been given the power to create his visions.   
  
He’d hook Near fiercely tonight that he’ll forget who he was ever supposed to be. If he was very successful it would make him start thinking about who he might be instead if he'd help Kira instead of stand in his way.  
  
Even if Near was far less of a match for him than L had been, the younger genius would be a source of inspiration to him. However temporarily.  
  
If it appeared the boy had remained less than completely seduced by their night together, Light would snap a picture of the albino’s face with his phone after he'd fucked him comotose and Misa could make him destined for 6 feet under by daybreak.  
  



	4. Bleed Out on My Altar

Kira  _was going to do more than kiss him._ He felt like he was ready for that.

\------------------------------  
Though tonight might be filled with firsts; this would not be his first kiss. He remembered a spin-the-bottle game at Wammy’s house being played by a large group of the older students after they had gotten ahold of some beer. They always got up to trouble on the weekends and he’d been doing his best to ignore whatever the hell it was they were doing. He’d one needed to stay in the room because it was big enough to air out the glue smell from his project.  
  
Instead of spinning the bottle when it came his turn. Mail had deviously rolled it over to where Nate had been finishing up building his latest robot. Mail chased after it and shrugged his shoulders as the neck pointed a foot away from Nate’s bare feet, “rules are rules, little soldier.” Making yet another dig at how Nate had always done everything he'd been told by the higher ups at Wammy.  
  
Linda had tittered very cattily at them both as Nate weakly pushed away against the biker boy’s unenjoyably firm and closed mouthed kiss. 'Near' had always seen 'Mello' as a bully too but instead of joining in the other's laughter the blond boy had taken off and thrown his right shoe at Mail, hitting him square in the back of the head. The rest of the group oohed and laughed even more, “Dumb ass," Miheal sing-songed. "He wants to be left alone!”

The German boy came over to get back his shoe, kicked at Mail’s shin for good measure even as he was kneeled cradling the back of his skull. Then he helped Near by handing him his robot from where it had fallen on the floor. 

Confronted with the model-esque Miheal Keehl, Near had been rendered speechless. 'Mello' wore two things everyday: a scowl across his pretty face as if he were disgusted with everyone and everything and a rosary as if he were a Catholic even though their orphanage raised them all to be theologically aware but secular.

The handsome older boy had gotten so close he could feel his breath on himself then he had comfortingly thumped him on the back. His rosary dangled right in front of Nate’s face. His signature scowl was nowhere to be found. Rather Mello considerately greeted him with his sparkling blue eyes and his vividly expressive face in a comforting look. Near realized then that the other boy was drunk.

Even still Near had felt enlivened by this friendly contact. The blond pointed back behind him with his raised hand curled in a fist while using his thumb to indicate Matt who was still nursing his head, and he'd said to him, “You’re way too good for that dumb prick to be your first kiss.”  
  
Nate nodded passively. He spent much of his time numbed to the outside world. He didn’t understand other humans; he hated almost all of them. What was one stolen kiss from a smarter-than-average cretin?  
  
But Miheal had shocked him by his fix-it - kissing Near's mouth briefly with a small tease of his tongue. “Pretend that was your first instead. I’m the better kisser between us.”

He winked and then left, dragging Mail away with him. Nate’s hand had flown to his own mouth as if he should hold the proof of the kiss there. The blond tasted of wheat beer and chocolate.

He had fallen in love as easily as that.One short drunken kiss, but it was from the only person in their private school for gifted orphans who had a history of sometimes matching Near's consistently perfect test results. 

He’d since obsessed about the older student. 

He spent plenty time drawing Miheal and making small dolls in his likeness after.He’d even found out and listened to his schoolmate’s favorite rock music at length. He’d collected Mello's wammy house yearbook pictures binding them into a flipbook to watch him progress from childhood to youth like a sunflower coming into bloom. He’d truly been inspired by the other boy’s combination of formidable cool and natural intelligence; he’d been told by Linda in their shared art class to chill out- reminded that the kiss had meant nothing; that it had been one-sided but Mello and he would occasionally exchange warm looks in the hallway that got Nate through whole weeks from then on. 

He’d have had many things to discuss with him if they ever spoke but small talk had never been something he knew how to seek out. So instead, he watched from afar.  
  
It had gutted him to be named as co-successor, instead of sole successor to ‘L’. If he’d been informed before, he’d have told Roger to let Miheal have the title alone. Nate was willing to solve cases but they weren’t his raison d'être - winning at anything he put his mind to was his passion and there could be other puzzles to solve. Miheal had been the only one amongst them who had spent time with 'L'. For some reason the man had needed him for an operation he ran in Los Angeles a year or so back.

That was the last time he’d been in the same room with Miheal. His headstrong childhood crush had gallivanted off with Mail to save everyone who didn’t want to be saved anymore.

They were going to get themselves killed by this man who was smashing Nate’s private world apart being the kind of beautiful ancients of discerning aesthetic taste had once painted frescos and chipped marble into human likeness of in order to deify.   
  
Mail and Miheal lacked the patience and long-term planning to anticipate the grand chess player’s next moves. All 'N' could do was try to move faster than anyone to protect them from their recklessness.

\------------------------------

Light pulled him down to where he was still kneeling to meet Nate's lips gently at first. 

Nate first felt those two lips on his and though their touch was featherlight - the level of intensity that ran through him was like being _stabbed in sacrifice_.

He stumbled backwards away from the man who caught up to him and kissed his neck, whispering against his skin, “Don’t. We’ll knock over your tarot cards.”  
  
He didn’t want that to happen; it upset him very much to see his delicate work go to waste. How had Light understood so readily how badly he didn’t want things like that to happen?  
  
He let Light - _Kira-_ move him backwards while the man searched his mouth. His tongue didn’t battle back. He accepted the onslaught to taste more of the older man's clean mouth. Kira was sweet and bitter in the way fine liquor smelt.  
  
He pulled away again and it was no small effort on his part. Before they can do any more Nate needs to take care of one remaining problem, “Light, part of this deal has to be that you can’t have your phone. Regardless of who you say you are; I can’t risk any pictures taken. I haven't seen you with it out thus far. I don't know what we might get into or if I might become distracted. Please hand it to me.”

No visible dismay registered across on Light’s face. He acted like he saw this as a reasonable additional expectation though Nate believed internally he was screaming. He dug through his clothes and handed a custom made soft bank motorola phone to Near. Nate went nude to the nearest window, cracked it open and chucked the device from the 37th floor.  
  
“That was overkill.” Light said with the barest hint of anger. “You could have had your bodyguard hold it before I came in. It's an expensive piece of police equipment. I will be billing your team for its replacement.”  
  
“Anyway. There’s a bedroom.” Near said because he didn't care about money and he felt better now,. He came back to him and Light only looked to him like they should get this show on the road. Oh, the sincerity of it. How did he do it?

He used the man's shoulders to pull himself up a bit and wrapped his legs around the larger man’s waist.

“Mm hm. I saw.” Light collaborated with him and hitched his arm under his bared backside and used his other arm to pull him closer while he walked into the master bedroom. Moving him there as easily as if Nate were a n animal he was carrying to warmth and safety.  
  
He laid Near across the snow white duvet. “White’s your color, isn't it?” He complimented, smiling beatifically and cupping his cheek. Near could practically bask in the warmth of his false sun.

Light was briefly distracted to glance over to the bedside table where Near had put the lube and condom. Halle had bought these for him a long time ago telling him he needed to find someone.  Light's smile became more wolfish for the sight.  “Ha. Maybe you do know how cute you are.”

  
“Stop flattering me. It's cheap.” Nate protested but Kira only pinned him and kissed him more deeply than before, letting him feel the full weight of his body pressing down on him. He then changed position to finally touch Nate's cock with his hand. 

  
The older man sat them both up against the cushioned leather headboard with him in his lap and started to gently tug and stroke spreading the glistening pre-come across his member with one of his deft ambidextrous hands, eliciting a keening noise from him.  
  
Light covered Nate's mouth with his other palm and began to jerk him off  whilst holding his mouth together by his chin so he could make no sound in response or in protest. Nate had no choice but for the pleasure to crash over him in waves. He became aware Light was also hard against him which edged him enough that he started to push away at Light's vice grip on his face so he might have the release of crying out load.  
  
Realizing he's already on track to an orgasm Light unsentimentally pinched him off at the base of his member, making Nate wilt and cry out for the whip-lash change in sensations. "You don't dare orgasm until after I do." He said roughly. "Not with the stunt you pulled to get me here. Take off my boxers."  
  
Nate did as he was told. It's incredible to finally see the man fully nude in person. Just like he'd been in the videos, his cock is lovely. It was not that Light was particularly big. It was that he was perfectly formed.

Light took the bottle from the nightstand and painted lube up and down his erection. He spread a fair amount around between the cheeks of Nate's ass. As he smoothed lube warmed between the palms of his hands onto his anus, Nate was vaguely aware of tearing up, totally overwhelmed as he was by how quickly this was progressing and additionally by the pain his cock felt from having been pinched into denial.

"Hey." Light mouthed and held his gaze with such convincingly caring eyes. He tucked some of Nate's thick hair behind his ear. There was no lie to be found in those amber irises. It was so natural to the man to move quickly between emotional extremes. The feeling of being cared for by Light Yagami was wonderful and dangerous.

He forced Near's legs back into his chest and lodged his cock between the younger man's cheeks. He slid his hard-on up and down the crack of his ass briefly, then lodged the head of his cock directly into his opening.

"Not enough," he murmured, waiting patiently for Nate to relax enough that he could begin to enter him. "Relax more for this," He soothed. "It's what you wanted and its why I'm here."

Nate lay very still, waiting, and he held his cock tight as Lighht pressed downwards again into his entrance. For a few more seconds nothing gave, but then Nate felt his sphincter muscle open up to encase Light's invading cockhead. Light moved again more roughly in order to lodge himself inside.

"Fuck." It was all Nate could manage because conversation had never been his preference and now it had flown from him. Light eased more of his cock inside of him until he'd become completely encased.

He paused then. And Nate had the irrational fear he wasn't making Light feel good enough. That he might decide suddenly to stop and walk away immediately. Nate didn't know what to do so still he lay there patiently feeling wonderfully full despite some mild pain. Trying to give the man leeway enough to do whatever he wanted to his smaller body. 

Nate took a deep breath because the pause continued past him being able to bear it. He desperately looked up at Light and realized what this was for. It was not that he was doubting that they should do this, but rather he was waiting to make certain his partner had adjusted to the new feeling inside himself. Light’s amber eyes were staring inquisitively into his face which Near realized had been nearly frozen for fear of openly moaning or smiling like a fool.

Nate experimentally moved his hands to Light’s back and pulled at him to show he was fine with all this. When the 23 year old assessed that the 18 year old was taking it in stride, he began at setting a steady rhythm. He lowered himself on top of Nate, wrapping his arms around him. His hips pumped harder as he made their tempo steady and predictable. Nate didn’t know why he continued to feel shy and lulled into simply taking this lying back. This man was a criminal. Nate was so much better than him. He should have been trying to assert his confidence.  
  
Light moved Nate’s legs even further up, locking his knees up to his sides. He supported himself on his lean, toned arms. Nate brought his arms back up to his back again and pulled him down closer to himself. Lifting his head up to reengage that inviting, lying mouth. Light returned the kiss and as he slid his tongue in he pulled back, then pushed deeper into Nate making him gasp into their kiss. He did that move again, sliding past his prostate and sinking all the way into the boy.

Nate couldn’t hold the kiss anymore and broke away. ”Please, please,” He moaned in spite of himself.

Light’s cock throbbed inside him. It made him feel full and hot inside. He realized then that the man was buried to the hilt in him without a condom. Light Yagami, who had probably charmed more partners into bed than Near had made acquaintances, was deep inside him without any protection. Yet Nate couldn’t bring himself to care enough to protest it. He’d never felt a connection this great to his own body before this. Completely aware of the fullness and, though it was surely an act, the consideration he was being shown by Kira made him feel safe in the murderer’s arms. Light pulled back and pushed back in, slowly at first. Nate whimpered as the older man rubbed again at the deep point where his prostate was by burying himself all the way in.

“You’re so fucking tight,” the young man who would be God approved. “Are you feeling it?”

"Yes," Nate moaned and pulled more at his back now; wanting to feel that fine body against him as completely as if he could melt into their coitus.  
  
“I've told you not to come until after I do,” The thrusting continued, steady and perfect, “I’ll punish you if you fail.”  
  
Another mind-melting brush was made against that bundle of nerves deep inside him. “I have high stamina. It might be impossible for you.”

Light does not make statements about his abilities like that without being able to back them up. He rocks into Near for what feels like ages, changing positions multiple times. Taking him from behind and bent over the mattress. Encouraging Near to ride his lap for awhile but quickly pulling him back into a bent over position again as soon as it’s clear that position is so pleasurable to Nate that he’s going to release in spite of himself.  
  
Nate was beginning to suspect it didn’t really matter if he ever had sex again after this. Not with this a heroin shock of a first time. He doubted anything would match it.

Finally, drenched in sweat but more radiant for it, Light told him, “I’m close. Should I pull out?"

“No.” Nate’s voice was unguardedly urgent and his black eyes were begging the man not to. He didn't want Light to ever pull out. The way he felt right now he wanted him to stay right on top of, deep inside of of him for as long as possible. "Don't.”  


Light skillfully positioned him so that he felt him even deeper then pounded roughly into him digging his fingers massagingly into his snowy white hair.

“Whimper for me again. Let me know how much you enjoy this.”Light ordered. How the hell was he this articulate during sex when Nate could barely get a sentence fragment out?  
  
Nate did whimper because he felt exposed by Light’s observations of his enjoyment and the noise set Light off to groaning himself. 

His hips were rutting and his balls were slapping repetitively against Near’s small, tight ass. He was huffing louder with every few seconds. Near began trashing underneath trying his best to hold back his orgasm. It was taking all the energy he had.  
  
He whimpered even more because it seemed so impossible not to come given the sensations and the visual of the man above him, making him feel incredible, but whatever the intended punishment was for coming before he’d been told - he really didn’t want to learn. Near kept pushing back against him, grinding his straining dick against Light’s fit stomach, leaving a trail of his arousal there.  
  
Soon he pinched the base of his own member as Light had done to him earlier in order to not come before the older man.Seeing that, he smirked and stroked his fingers through Nate’s white hair.  
  
“You’re perfect for me.” And Nate felt a chill go through him. Was that Kira speaking about him in general? Or was Light speaking in the heat of the moment about his body?  
  
He couldn’t think about it more. This would be the first and last time they did this. Light’s mouth was on his again and making him feel so pseudo- appreciated. That cock was pumping in and out of him made him feel crazed right now.

Light thrust into him one last time and he moaned loudly. Nate could feel it pulse inside of him shooting a heated load. Light collapsed on top of him then and made a slightly undignified noise. Near held on tight until he felt his softening penis finally slip out of him. Ligh had shot his load so deep inside him that nothing followed after.  
  
Near thought Light might pass out on top of him then leaving him to contend with his still hard cock.  
  
Thankfully, he was wrong because Light only slumped a moment before kissing the sweat of Near's forehead.  
  
“You’ve waited your turn. A reward, then.”  
  
Light lifted him to his knees and kissed at his still straining, now painfully sensitive member. Near balled his fist into his mouth in anticipation because there was a history to this; this had been one of the things about L and Light that set him about to learning about what Light was really capable of in the first place.  
  
Many of the explicit videos had been of Light sucking L off in the shower on one of their twin beds. The man seemed to have a kink for dropping to his knees, which was odd for someone with a big ego, but Nate had suspected it was mostly to do with how much control and composure “Ryuzaki” had lost whenever he did.

The detective had yelled out in orgasm with an uncharacteristic primal release every time he’d finished in Light’s mouth. If their headquarters had not been soundproofed he would have woken the entire neighborhood.  


Now those lips closed around Nate’s own cock and he soon realized the reason L had been screaming like that. The man was simultaneously sucking at him wetly, deep throating him and digging a free finger into Nate’s freshly fucked hole.   
  
Nate lasted maybe 30 more seconds after he felt Light open him up, fingering him enough to let the still warm come inside him dribble out. He couldn’t hear his own response at that point. He nearly blacked out from the immense pleasure of his own release. Light audibly swallowed.  
  
Light lowered him into his arms from his knelt position into his arms and kissed him, making him taste a little of his own ejaculate. Near's eyes felt droopy. If he could just rest a moment…  
  
“You’re a little like he was,” Was the last thing he heard before he fell asleep.  
  
——————-

He awoke a couple hours later and found that Light had hand drafted a contract about the video logs for him to sign. It read as if a lawyer had drafted it over the course of weeks. Light had probably written it in minutes. He’d also left him a glass of water, soup and bread from room service and a note that said, “Near, Eat something or you'll catch a cold. I don’t like your methods but I appreciate your results. You were cute tonight. You've got a bad attitude and a good heart. We will meet again. You won't be able to stay away for long. - Light Yagami”  
  
___________  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Later that day, before Nate had even finished organizing and packing his toys to leave - he received a message on his phone.  
  
[RESTRICTED NUMBER]: Hello 'N.' I’m blackmailing you.  
  
[RESTRICTED NUMBER]: (A photo uploaded of Mello and Matt holding hands walking through a street crossing in downtown Tokyo. Miheal was eating a bar of Royce chocolate that had left an attractive smatter across his pouty bottom lip.)

 _This photo had been on his password protected, triple encrypted laptop that he’d brought to stay in a emergency contact with headquarters in case the dummy in his place was found out. He’d always kept one photo now to remind himself of what all couldn’t be. But it had been unmarked. It had been unclear if these two boys were important. Light’s phone had been disposed of, dropped from the starless Ark Hills sky into suburban streets. So how? Nate should have never slept with Light in the apartment._  
  
[RESTRICTED NUMBER]: Two things.  
  
_He felt frozen; unable to text back._  
  
[RESTRICTED NUMBER]: Finish what you’ve started with me. Not just what we spoke of. All of it should be deleted.  
  
_Watari's ace in the hole for the future 'L' sucessor to catch Kira had been sending him the video-logs before his death. Surely Near couldn't just delete all of them but... Mihael..._

[RESTRICTED NUMBER]: After you’ll have package and a visitor. It would be wise to accept their deal as proof of your loyalty.

[RESTRICTED NUMBER]: I wish you no harm. Do as I've written and I will only reward you.  
  
Nate River didn’t cry out. He considered if he could let Miheal die in order to win. These would be cryptic threats to a random observer but he could tie them back to Light easily by showing others the set of messages he had sent… would he be willing to do that? To show people he had blackmailed Light Yagami into meeting him?  
  
Miheal and stupid Mail… they would definitely die if he didn’t meet the demands.  
  
He realized he didn’t have the stomach for that.

He didn’t weep for losers. Not even for himself. 

He doubted even Light’s companionship would be enough to make him forget he was one now.  



	5. Treading Water

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “It kicks like a sleep twitch.” //Editors

ADDENDUM   
  
Near knew the Kira Task Force distrusted him with their whole hearts but were unwilling to say so because Light had been the one to give him his new position. They hated his toys everywhere crowding up their workspace and regulating them to limited movements. They hated that Nate had required they hire a butler for him. Viewed him as prissy, far too eccentric and stand-offish. But everyone loved, trusted and respected Light, didn’t they? So his presence remained unchallenged.

 

Though Aizawa, Ide and Mogi took orders from him looking like they were barely keeping themselves from pulling faces. Only Matsuda obeyed without question. Soichiro was kindest and seemed to be fine with being a go-between for their new ‘L’.  
  
Light had taken a long break, seemingly broken-hearted, after he’d set it up that his fiancé Misa had committed suicide in her car; leaving a note that said her parents’ murder still tortured her and she wanted to go be with them. He was currently living at home with the death note that was not haunted.

 

Near had gotten stuck with Ryuk who complained to him often that he was not as cute or thoughtful as Misa had been. But on days Nate gave him several apples he seemed to forget she’d ever existed to begin with.  
  
Anyone at the SPK who had heard Near conclude that Light Yagami was Kira had to be killed outright. Nate River still felt sick about that but Kira was inarguably right that they posed too great of a risk to both of them. Then it made it natural for Light Yagami to recruit him into supposed safety since Kira had compromised the American team and would be looking for him.  
  
Light, true to his word, had not killed Miheal or Mail after Near took the shinigami eye deal. At least not yet. But he’d told Nate that if they became a real problem for him; they’d be eliminated.

 

Nate River worked at keeping them and their mafia connections distracted from any real leads. It wasn’t easy. Mello was pretty sharp and more worrisome than that still was how he was entirely unpredictable. Nate was worried he was trying to hold the tide with a broom but maybe he’d be dead before he had to see Miheal die from his lover’s fatal habits.

 

Somehow Light had figured out he liked the blond boy because, Light had explained to him, who wouldn’t want a piece of that swagger. Then he winked and said he was just joking when Nate looked worried that maybe Light did too. He explained it was because the metadata on the file had made it clear that picture had been opened several times on one day alone and Near was not the kind of person who needed to look at files more than once to garner what was important about them. He’d narrowed near’s preference down to the blond because that would have been his own preference especially, he said, if he’d been more of an awkward person like Near. Then he’d had Misa identify them that morning.  
  
Nate would have been angrier at the assertions he was awkward if Light wasn’t so enamored and appreciative of him in bed. He’d never stopped for very long with his flattery. He’d been even more artfully complimentary when Nate quit his small routine of colored contacts and eye make-up per his request. Though he liked eyeliner still, just at the bottom lashes. He’d let Light convince him to regularly don a white business shirt with an “N” monogram on its pocket and pale blue pants. He could never quite remember to tuck the shirt in, to use the cufflinks or belt though except for when Light would take time to do these things for him.

He let the lie of being deeply desired by Kira become his personal truth. It didn’t matter that others now instinctively flinched away at first sight from his pale face and reddish eyes. It didn’t matter when _it_ felt real enough. And ever since taking the eyes, though every embrace they shared felt like a momento mori, he could breathe easy knowing he was indispensable to Kira.  
  
Near knew he reminded him a little of ‘L’, but the fantasy version of 'L' who had followed him instead of challenged him.   
  
The videos had been destroyed. Nate had once asked Light if he had rewatched any of them before throwing the hard drives they were stored on in an incinerator. Light had deflected the question.

At night though sometimes he moaned the man’s fake name out in his sleep. Nate also didn’t know ‘L’s real name. The way they shared this odd and very specific frustration about someone they'd both felt shaped their lives made him feel more intimate with Light.   
  
Nothing much from here was holding Light back from ruling the world now except his own probably not irrational fear of another death note user taking him out. Nate had already suggested proxies having identified for him people like Mikami Teru who would likely gladly take the risk of being the living face of Kira.  
  
Light had just laughed at him. “When the world finally sees Kira - they must see a God unquestionably. Does he look like a God to you?”  
  
“He looks like a bookish lawyer. No God.” Near conceded.  
  
“Do I look like one though, Nate?”  
  
“Yes.” He told him because honestly, Light did.


	6. Palest Imitation, one shot- Fire In Your New Shoes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> FOUR YEARS LATER
> 
> One shot in this universe because it's seriously been my go-to this week.
> 
> Ryuk mistakes Near's continued private voyeurism as his plotting to leave Light.
> 
> Matt and Mello have inspired him to try some new things in bed.
> 
> Emotional cheating, cross dressing, other
> 
> Light's POV (Teaser Only For Now)

Light preferred to avoid Ryuk. Whenever he could get away with it, he'd let his partners in using the Death Note handle the shinigami instead.

It was not because Ryuk was all that scary. Light was used to all of that by now. It is for only one reason.

This one right here:

The Death God never kept his goddamned mouth shut. 

Light is alone with Ryuk while Nate is hard at work on what he has said he believes will be the method for Kira to interact with the masses without putting Light at risk.

Nate had explained various different concepts over the years. All of which Light had rejected for being less than full proof. But this one... it was a high tech solution that sounded like it could work and keep him secure from another death note user destroying all he had worked to obtain.

So the God-of-being-annoying and Light are together in his mansion apartment in Chiyoda Ward when the shinigami says to him apropos of nothing, "Heads up Light. Lambchop is going to leave you for those scrawny white guys you let him keep alive."

Light doesn’t respond at first. This is up there on the list of the dumbest things Ryuk has ever said to him. Another dumb thing in a novel length list of dumb things.  
  
Nate River had proved invested in his visions for a utopia. Light long ago stopped worrying his partner's loyalty would waver. In fact, Nate had become central to Light's future plans and wanted more from Light's being a God than Light did sometimes. He complained to him that Light's paranoia about his identity being exposed was the only thing holding him back from achieving all he'd ever wanted. Kira was so close to being a real God if Light would only take a small risk. Crime had fallen 90% since Light started as Kira. Only petty crimes remained. Nate debated with him punishing those sorts of crimes too. Statistically they were gateway crimes to worser ones. Nate had punished petty criminals more than a few times without Light's permission. Random eliminations, the white-haired man argued, might dissuade the whole of such actions. Why not give it a shot?

Light didn't trust Nate's arguments for his more liberal use of the Death Note were all that well reasoned. He wasn't a very morally strong user of the Death Note. He agreed with their attendant Mikami Teru - both held an extremist view that many people should be eliminated simply because they were wastes of space. Light always kept in mind that Nate secretly hated about everybody else on the planet. Only warming to a few people over time. Mikami Teru was just a few cards short of a full deck himself.

  
As 'Kira'  Light had made an obvious point of no return so criminals could decide. The point of no return was to commit a violent crime or to have abetted one. He would keep it that way. He found himself telling Near that a world where no one could ever make a mistake was not really a utopia. A world like that would be a world-sized prison.

Anyway Light was the only Death Note user who mattered. Today he felt nothing but deep regret he did not think to wear headphones and listen to Ryuichi Sakamoto instead of open himself up to conversation with Ryuk.

Finally he responded, "Don't be stupid. Nate can't so much as tie his oxfords without me."

Ryuk sustained a pretty decent laugh at that, then he smiled even larger than normal, "Your funeral."

"What is it with you? Why do you say these horrible things to me like breathing?"

"Bet he's upset you haven't told your family about the two of you yet . He's still your dirty secret."

"Did he ever say any of that to you?" Light can't imagine it.

"Nope." The shinigami admitted in sing-song and flipped into a handstand on his chair.

Light's rolled his eyes so hard they fluttered into the back of his head. 

Nate River was a mean-spirited kind of person who didn't get along with others, and didn't make a very convincing show of it for his work life either, so the fact Light was one of the only people he'd grown to like was one of the many successes that made the older man proud of himself.

He wasn't one for an audience. Light hadn't needed to come out to his family to keep Near around. The best thing about his petite partner was how little validation he needed from Light. How little validation Nate needed from anybody, really.

He was so incredibly predictable that it was comforting. He had three ways of expressing himself only: lost-in-space, catty and snide, or peacefully calm. Though he would sometimes get angry and call Light nasty names for anything from forbidding plastic figurines and rubber duckies in their bedroom to taking his Death Note away for a bit when his judgments seemed to be getting more capricious than Kira-like... Luckily, Nate could never sustain serious conflict with Light for long. A few well timed kisses and time in bed together typically brought him sighing dreamily back to exhibiting his normal bitchy apathy towards almost everything but Light.

Though Nate needed help to remember to do day-to-day things; he was a calm and quiet partner. Light never worried about him straying. Especially not with the way the younger man responded to him. In fact, Nate never left their home except for case research matters and occasionally for his art projects and collectibles but even still he did not socialize. He sent Mikami Teru to do anything menial.

Ryuk chuckled even more, "Don't do anything about it. See if I care. They'll all run away together. Maybe that red headed hacker will play video games with me like you and I used to before you started acting too good for it."

"Explain your reasons for claiming Nate is cheating on me, and I will do something if you aren't making shit up."

"He's been interacting with them." Ryuk says easily.

Light cocked his head at that news moving slowly towards Ryuk, saying dangerously, "In what way?"  
  
He really didn't want to have to eliminate Nate. 

Ryuk laughed. "I've said too much. You should know by now I don't help you with those kind of things."

"You were looking to say too much." Light barked shortly and started thinking if he'd seen any sign Nate had been distracted in an atypical way lately. The younger man had been spacing out and daydreaming a little more than usual. Nothing unusual. Nate typically did that in the lead up to any major project he did. He would get lost in his thoughts for hours sometimes.

He slammed a fist against the coffee table, "In what way Ryuk?"

"I can't say more. It counts as helping." Ryuk's laughter at Light's frustration grew louder.

"You are unbelievable. You are just bored and playing with me. This won't get you a round of Mariokart; I'll tell you that much."

"Think whatever you're gonna think, kid."

Near would be back later in the evening than this. Light wouldn't confront him because of the vasty unreliable source of the information. Rather, he'd find out what had inspired Ryuk's claim of Nate committing some kind of subterfuge against Kira in a more appropriate fashion.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Some thoughts on this rare pairing:
> 
> I know if you are a Light fan you probably think you hate Near. Or vice versa.
> 
> I am trashy mctrashy Light Yagami fantrash so here's why I was taken in by this pairing.
> 
> One - its aesthetic! *sparkle, sparkle* 
> 
> https://www.pinterest.com/amp/pin/558376053773294864/
> 
> I give you Sasha Moloko as proof that even someone as physically perfect as Kira would be all, ‘alright you psycho; I’d hit it ' As well an additional, official illustration of an adult Near in case you haven't seen it before which makes him appear pretty good looking:
> 
> http://file.rxyz.blog.shinobi.jp/nia080209.jpg
> 
> Two - Near is a fucking cute but bitchy bottom with no real world coping skills. He's such a lamb that he LIVES IN HIS PAJAMAS.
> 
> Sooooo many cute things about Near. There is the fact he is canonically tiny, that he does not leave his residence probably because he's afraid to interact with humans, that unlike L I believe Near would fall to pieces without a caretaker and that he craves companionship so if he started to want someone he’d do things like keep their picture and write ‘dear so and so’ on it and make very flattering dolls of them (Mello). Or slip up and talk about keeping them (Light).
> 
> Ohba also explained how Near probably liked Mello but Mello viewed him as rival only. Thus I started to view him as this person who wants to connect with people but who can't. Which makes him kind of tragic doesn't it? Tragic and in need of an understanding party.
> 
> Bring in Light as top. He's the most handsome person in the death note universe. He loves to take advantage of people who need somebody. He does it compulsively, really. It's like his whole thing. The using people and the killing people then the laughing about it with Ryuk. 
> 
> People really dislike Light/Near. I get that. I can find very few Light/Near fanworks of any kind. This also makes sense. But you guys... I might not be the best writer in the fandom but it’s all there for you. (This used to mention that this had less than 60 clicks. It didn’t get attention for a couple days then shot up. Thanks to you readers willing to test a pairing you don’t normally like!)
> 
> I am charmed by their pairing myself. It only took 10 years for me to see it.
> 
> Yell at me here for being a shitty human: https://weusedtotalktilmidnight.tumblr.com I have no delusions of being a good writer.


End file.
